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When Montrealers Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne and Toby Harper-Merrett returned from a stint living in Canmore, Alta., they had two daughters in tow and an appreciation for wide-open spaces. Both indoors and out. Moving the family from the brand-new, four-bedroom, four-bathroom home out West to Raudsepp-Hearne’s ultra-urban top-floor flat in the heart of the Plateau posed some challenges. It was, at least at first glance, a rather dramatic lifestyle change.

Raudsepp-Hearne is an environmental scientist with a PhD in geography from McGill. She bought the 1,100-square-foot space as a professional in her 20s after saving nearly her entire salary while working in Malaysia for several years conducting and co-ordinating ecosystem service assessments. She now is a consultant to the federal government, and can walk to her rented office space.

Raudsepp-Hearne, 36, first shared her unit with a roommate, and then lived in it on her own.

Harper-Merrett, her longtime partner, whom she met in high school two decades ago in Montreal, owns the second-floor condo, bought in 2006 for $170,000. It’s rented to an engineering PhD couple. For the moment, there are no plans to join the two places together. The extra space isn’t needed.

The couple was initially torn over how to make optimal use of the layout of the apartment. They eventually chose to put their young daughters in one bedroom, freeing up the third bedroom for a formal dining room area and arts and crafts space for the children.

Q: You bought this place when you were single, and you’ve managed to transition it to your family home with your partner and your two kids now.

A: We always laugh, because I was here by myself, and now there are four of us in this place, so it’s quite a change.

Q: What do you think of living on one floor?

A: When we moved here from Alberta, I kept thinking that it (the children’s shared bedroom) is never going to work, they’re going to keep each other up. But then I kept thinking that all around the world, there are people who figure out how to make this work and it took about two months to get used to the new situation, and there hasn’t been a single issue since. So, we usually put Lumi (age 1) to sleep first and then Ida (age 4) to sleep 15 minutes later, and there’s been no issue whatsoever. And I’m excited for them to have two beds eventually, where they can crawl into bed together because they love to do that. They do it in our bed now, but it’ll be even better when they’ll do it in their own beds, cause then we can keep sleeping!(The small front room has a hand-built loft bed above the crib to maximize floor space, and a shared divided closet with many storage compartments to tuck away tiny pairs of socks, clothes and diapers.)

Q: So you’ve really tried to use your storage in a way that creates a lot of open space, right?

A: I’m all about cosy, and Toby is all about austere and empty and lots of open space, so we meet in the middle here. I like this room because everything works perfectly and it all fits into the space.

Q: Do you like some of the features particular to this building — one that’s more than a century old? Is that what drew you to the apartment?

A: I love them, I love them. And that’s another thing — after living in a brand-new house in Alberta, I came back and said there are cracks everywhere. How can we live here? After a month, I was like, I can’t believe anyone can live in a modern home; this is so nice and cosy.

Q: What is your neighbourhood like? It feels like it’s not just professionals and people without children who live in this part of the Plateau. Are there lots of families, too?

A: One of the things that worried me about moving here with kids is — will they be safe? Will they be stepping on broken glass or coming across needles in the alley, and so far, I have no fears anymore. There are lots of families. You don’t have to have a playdate to go out. The kids spend most of their time out front, and the good part about that is that they are forced into more public spaces where the other kids are. There are plenty of places to be and it means that they are always interacting with people.

Q: And it’s cool because it seems like they are interacting with all different kinds of people?

A: Yes — adults, English, French, Portuguese. People of all ages, all languages and lots of kids.

Shelter is a weekly series featuring a conversation with tenants or condo owners.

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